


Eostur

by halfhardtorock



Series: The Seasons [2]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfhardtorock/pseuds/halfhardtorock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nights are still cold, though they say it is spring. Athelstan can see no difference, except the quality of the light, which has turned the iron-grey sea into something blue again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eostur

Lagertha had taken the children with her to Kattegat so their lovemaking is excessive and energetic, even for Ragnar, who usually takes what he wants with zeal no matter who is about anyhow.

They've pulled the great bear's pelt off the bed and hung it out in the yard to air it, heavy with Ragnar's scent.

And now Athelstan is being bedded into the other furs, his face held down with Ragnar's hard hand at his temple. 

"I _need_ you--" Ragnar groans at his exposed ear.

"--and I need you," Athelstan gasps readily in return, always so aroused by Ragnar's love-words.

"--no," Ragnar says, out of breath. "I need you. To dress nicely. Tomorrow."

Athelstan can hardly consider what Ragnar's asking for when his cock is frantic in his arse. 

"W-what?" he asks and then keens, feeling Ragnar's tongue in his ear, then his teeth.

" _Please_ , Athelstan. Please--" Ragnar whines. 

"Yes, I will. I will...anything--" Athelstan promises and bites his lip sharply, feeling Ragnar search down with needy, wet lips, looking for his mouth.

They kiss as Ragnar tenses up at his back, cock going stony inside him, bruising. 

And then Ragnar is coming, making that wild, wounded sound he makes when he spills.

 

The nights are still cold, though they say it is spring. Athelstan can see no difference, except the quality of the light, which has turned the iron-grey sea into something blue again. 

He curls against Ragnar's back most of the night, warming his cheek to Ragnar's naked shoulder. Sometimes the man turns over and tugs him close, puts an arm under Athelstan and presses Athelstan's face to his hairy, fragrant armpit. They sleep with their knees locked, their mouths slipped open on their snores. Ragnar's beard tickles his forehead when the man tucks his head over his.

When Lagertha is there, sometimes Ragnar rolls away entirely, taking a fur with him and Lagertha cups Athelstan to her breast and they sleep in a soft, pleasant pile.

 

"What is this?" Ragnar asks, frowning. Touching Athelstan's brown shirt.

"It is my shirt?" Athelstan says in return, looking down at Ragnar's fingers plucking at the laces.

"Not this," Ragnar says and goes into his own basket, pulling out shirts. He shakes out a blue shirt, one of his finest and holds it up to Athelstan. 

"No, I can't. That's...it's too costly," Athelstan argues but Ragnar is ignoring him and pulling the brown shirt off over his head. 

"You will wear what I tell you to," Ragnar says and then pauses, rolling his eyes when Athelstan crosses his arms over his chest. "Please?"

Athelstan allows it, and then watches Ragnar put on his best leather armor, his bracelets. "What are we dressing for?" he wonders.

"It is nothing of importance," Ragnar dismisses and then smiles, smooths his hand up Athelstan's chest. "I like the look of you in my clothes."

"It is too big," Athelstan argues but Ragnar just removes his own leather belt and, watching Athelstan's eyes, puts the belt on him. 

"Better," Ragnar says turning away. He looks around the room and then returns with a pot of blackening. When Athelstan realizes what he means to do with it, he shies back.

"What is it now?" Ragnar sighs, annoyed. 

"I...I cannot. I will look like Floki." Athelstan makes a face at the idea. Ragnar barks out a laugh.

"What would be wrong with that?" he asks, and sets Athelstan to sit at the table's edge.

"Floki is--" Athelstan tries to find a polite way of saying it, but he can't and just slumps in defeat as Ragnar starts to paint his eyes with his little finger. Ragnar's tongue touches at the edge of his mouth in concentration.

Afterwards, Athelstan stands and feels out of place, a stranger in strange clothes, the round of his eyes tacky and heavy with paint. 

Ragnar makes a little smile, looks him over. "Oh my pretty little priest," he says.

Athelstan tries to ignore it, but Ragnar makes him blush when the man is tender with him.

"Come, we will be late if we don't leave now," the man says, strapping on his sword.

 

There are places high in the forest that have turned green already, and Athelstan breathes in the smell of new things. Leaves springing awake and fluttering like little flags on their branches. The earth is ripe and fetid with mud and melting snow and he slips a few times, needs Ragnar to take his arm and keep him upright.

They're walking in the tall trees like men in a cathedral, listening to the wind creak far up in the bowers when they come up a rocky path and find a gathering of kinsmen in the clearing at the top.

Athelstan's feet stop in surprise. Ragnar takes his arm again and marches him the rest of the way.

Lagertha is there in a jeweled, greensilk dress. It is newly made and pretty against her flushed face. She smiles at them and Athelstan grins back, stammers out a compliment. Her hair is all up in neat plaits, her lips touched with a red stain. She makes something hurt inside him, something that makes his hands tremble with wanting to touch her again. It has been many, many days since he's had her.

Ragnar takes his wife in his arms and spins her, making her laugh and shove him off when he sets her back on her feet. 

"Your eyes...I like it," she tells Athelstan.

Gyda touches Athelstan's hand, her little fingers cold so he takes them up and blows on them. Her face flushes and he admires her own new dress, green like her mother's but girlish and unadorned. She shies, smiling though and showing where she's lost one of her milk teeth.

Bjorn knocks into him when he walks by to greet his father. The two shake hands and Ragnar grasps him with a hand to his crown, feeling the boy's head, smoothing the thumb through the boy's cowlick.

There are others he knows from the village, from Kattegat. Athelstan looks at the crowd with interest, how they're all dressed in their best clothes and smiling. 

"What is happening here today?" he asks Gyda, whose eyes widen.

"What, did he not tell you?" a man asks and Athelstan turns to Rollo, finds him watching with an amused look. "It is a _hand-festa_."

"Oh, who is hand-fasting?" Athelstan asks, curious, pleased that he will be able to witness such a thing.

"You are," Rollo says, and then snorts when Athelstan's face opens up with surprise.

"Oh, Ragnar, you arse," Lagertha sighs, and punches her husband in the side. The man barely moves, just keeps his dancing, trickster eyes on Athelstan's face, his lip bitten in his teeth.

"Mine?" Athelstan asks, dazed.

"Mmm-hm," Ragnar nods.

Athelstan swallows. "But...can he do that?" he asks Rollo.

"No," Rollo laughs, and then shakes his head. "But Ragnar does as Ragnar pleases."

"Wait," Athelstan says to Ragnar, alarmed. "I am hand-fasting with you, right?" 

Rollo's laugh turns heckling, which makes a black cloud run across Ragnar's features. "Oh, brother. You have this poor man turned all around and twisted up all over the place. Not even knowing who you'll hand-fast him to. By Odin, it is a delight to watch."

"Shut up," Ragnar mutters and takes Athelstan's head in hand, draws him closer. "Will you? Hand-fast with me and Lagertha?"

Athelstan breathes through his mouth in a bluster, overwhelmed. "I...I would. I will."

Ragnar looks at him like he'd take him back to bed now, if it was an option. "Good." 

 

The seer is unhappy with the whole ordeal. The girl who braids the cloth around their hands has to pause a few times and check her work, unused to braiding so many hands together. Lagertha raises her eyebrows at the crowd once, makes them laugh. Ragnar just stares at Athelstan like he's still thinking of tossing him into the furs again. 

Rollo stands near with the children, smiling a little. Watching the confusion.

An unseen bird trills and draws Athelstan's gaze up to the treetops where the sun is just rising to peer through the crossed branches.

He has a heartbeat to realize that where he once held God inside him will now be full of Ragnar and his family.

And then he looks back and realizes that it's done. His kinsmen honor them with cheers and laughter.

He's married.

 

They drink. 

He's leaning against a sturdy tree for support--or perhaps it is Rollo--when a long-faced girl approaches him and steals a little kiss from his mouth before disappearing again.

He wipes it off his lips with the back of his hand, startled.

"Poor girl," Rollo says under his breath. 

It isn't until much later that Athelstan realizes it was Bild's dottir, come to say goodbye to her love.

 

Rollo takes the children home with him, gives Ragnar one hard knock to his shoulder. "This is the last time. If you choose to marry someone else again next spring, count me out."

Ragnar takes his wife by the arm and then Athelstan, his husband, by his and drags them from the carousers, down the path towards the farm again.

Athelstan and Lagertha's hands find each other and cling.

Inside the hovel, the fire has burned out but they will make their own heat. Ragnar takes Athelstan's face in hand with a groan, whispers " _Athelstan Lothbrok_ ," and then begins drinking at his mouth.

"Yes, get him...get him bared for me--" Lagertha gasps out, stripping her belt off then her fur and new dress. She takes Athelstan by his lean hips and drags him towards her.

Ragnar rips Athelstan's shirt off his head, then jerks him close by the belt, a snarl on his mouth in impatience. Athelstan shivers between them, so aroused his trousers get caught on his cock before Lagertha groans, bites the back of his shoulder blade and tugs the laces loose so the material falls down his legs.

Ragnar kisses him and then kisses Lagertha over his shoulder and Athelstan melts between their warm bodies, eyes closing.

Lagertha walks back and settles on the table top, eyelids heavy with heat, legs spread wantonly, showing her pink, glossy cunt.

"Get inside me," she says to Athelstan, voice low with her arousal. 

" _Fuck_ ," Ragnar groans, and manhandles Athelstan towards her when Athelstan is too shocked with arousal to move.

Ragnar forces him between her knees and Athelstan does the rest, wrapping his arm around her back to hold her while he guides his own prick inside her sex.

She arches, loosing a harsh, hungry sound as he fills her. Lagertha. His _wife_.

He takes her with a fierceness he's never felt before, making her scratch at his hips, nail his screwing ass with clawed fingers as she hisses through her clenched teeth.

"Oh gods, take her. Take her," Ragnar moans, voice high behind him. 

He breaks into a sweat trying to breed her. She has to grasp the edge of the table top just to bear it.

 

When he can feel she's near by the tightness of her cunt, he turns and grabs Ragnar by his braids, _yanks_ his head down.

Ragnar's face goes slack with arousal, his eyes glassy.

"Eat her--" Athelstan snarls and Ragnar groans, nudges into where they're fucking, where Athelstan cock is working at her and touches his tongue to where Lagertha needs it.

She claws at Ragnar's head, at Athelstan's ass and comes with these sweet, throaty cries.

 

"Are you going to be a big man for me too?" Ragnar teases him as they fall into bed together after. Athelstan owls at him tiredly and shakes his head, feeling shy. 

Ragnar sighs long-sufferingly and turns Athelstan over onto his stomach with gentle hands. 

"Just rest there then, while I do all the work. As usual, my love."

Ragnar gets the back of his head cuffed then, by his wife. She curls around Athelstan and holds his eyes as Ragnar opens him. 

It always makes him flush up, hot like an ember when she openly watches him like this. She looks at him with such love and then takes his hand in hers, holds it.

They had been up most of the night doing this, so now it will take very little for Ragnar to work him out for his cock. 

"Does it hurt?" she wonders softly as Athelstan's body tightens and shakes and Ragnar groans at the hot, trembling muscle on his fingers.

"Yesss," Athelstan hisses and arches, squeezing her hand. She makes a little, sympathetic sound and kisses his straining jaw, his flushed cheek.

"Do you want it? Your husband's cock?" Ragnar asks, voice dripping with ridicule, making Athelstan's cock twitch awake, lift again. He moans, drops his forehead into the furs. Arches his arse up in offering.

"Then here is my cock, my good love," Ragnar says breathlessly, mounting him. "Hold his hand, wife. He will need you."

And then Ragnar _takes_ him, makes Athelstan scream into the bedding.

 

They're all stuck together in a sweat, bare skin steaming. Ragnar dozes with his face between Lagertha's breasts, his naked ass pressed back into the small cup of Athelstan's hips.

Athelstan stays awake to play with Lagertha's hair, to make her smile in her sleep with his touch.

He whispers into her skin

_There are three things that amaze me—_  
no, four things that I don’t understand:  
how an eagle glides through the sky,  
how a snake slithers on a rock,  
how a ship navigates the sea,  
how a man loves another. 

_And another._


End file.
